Mice stiiiiiiiiink! Definitely go with rats. I also cannot stand pine bedding with my rats. For some reason the urine mixed with pine creates this heavy stench that is just noxious to me. Aspen bedding works really well for me, and I only need to do a cleaning every 5 days for it not to be noticeable (the smell). I haven't tried the pine pellets though...
I don't have experience with ASFs but wouldn't use them in case I wanted to sell my snakes/future offspring...